Posted: 10/24/06
Direct hardwood seeding impresses group
By David Heiller
Argus News Editor
David Bauer doesnít quite need GPS equipment to navigate his young woods.
Not yet anyway.
Bauer has an interesting woodlot project going on 14 acres of his land in section six of Winnebago Township.
He worked with local foresters to plant tens of thousands of trees on the rolling parcel.
How many trees exactly would be impossible to guess, but a rough count Bauer made last summer showed 12,000-15,000 trees per acre.
ìIt way exceeded anything I expected,î Bauer said on October 18 before a forestry tour arrived. ìItís just phenomenal.î
Bauer planted the trees in November of 2000 with the help of Houston County DNR Valiree Green and private forester Duane ìDuganî Oakes.
He tilled the soil deeply, sprayed it with an herbicide, then planted nuts using a good old fashioned manure spreader. The nuts were then work in lightly with a disc.
They used A LOT of nuts: 130 bushels of walnuts, 20 bushels of green ash, 13 bushels each of red oak and burr oak, three bushels of white oak, and two bushes each of butternut and cherry.
The project was cost-shared by the DNR. Bauer estimated it cost him about $125 per acre.
ìWe have a wonderful DNR,î Bauer said. ìI canít say enough about Valiree Green and Duane Oakes.î
The cherry and ash came up first. Bauer said they are like a quick cover crop.
In the third year he sprayed the field again before the buds on the trees opened.
Now he is doing ìtree release.î That means he will find a tree that he wants to see grow well, and will cut down the trees around it to allow in lots of light and eliminate competition.
Itís a lot of work ñ it might even seem impossible, the trees are so dense. But Bauer can point out individual trees like a farmer can point out his best milking cow. Bauer did just that to a group of touring wildlife workers during the forestry tour last week. It was part of a program called the Driftless Area Initiative (DIA).
Bauer pointed out a butternut. It grew 7-8 feet in one year, he said. The trees are bigger by far than seedlings that are two years older, he said.
Bryan Burhans, director of land management programs for the National Wild Turkey Federation, thought the idea made sense. It doesnít look like a tree plantation, Burhans said. ìRandom diversity,î he called it, with an accent that hinted at his South Carolina accent.
That was one of the big reasons the direct seeding idea, as it is called, appealed to Bauer. ìI just didnít care for the row aspect,î he said. ì[Iím] Trying to get a natural looking woods.î
And all that work of thinning isnít really work for Bauer. He likes it too much. (And he is a Bauer after all, a human sub-species that seems to be born to work and work and work.)
Jeff Hastings, a member of Trout Unlimited, said it must be great for wildlife. Burhans thought it would be a big plus for pheasants and would give them more shelter.
Bauer said that was the case. He made it to be a deer corridor, and itís working for that, plus is attracting pheasants too.
Other stops on the DIA tour on October 18 included Staggemeyer Stave Mill, a seed orchard, and a scenic overlook of the Mississippi River by Reno.
The group also had tours in Wisconsin and Iowa last week. DIA is a collaboration of local, state, and national organizations led by six Resource Conservation and Development councils in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois.
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